


light in darkness

by EKmisao



Series: light and dark [3]
Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EKmisao/pseuds/EKmisao
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The resistance doesn’t need this pilot," Grantaire drawled out, and held his head. “This pilot lost the synch, or maybe you’ve forgotten."</p>
            </blockquote>





	light in darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keio/gifts), [Stormberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormberry/gifts).



> So. Pacific Rim had been watched. K and stormberry had also individually watched the thing, and were jointly gushing about other mashups already done with the movie for this fandom. Then they twitter-exchanged some ideas. They couldn't get out of my head. And I was sick of logging names. So this got written, initially on tumblr. I hope you like. 
> 
> The whole work is a possible spoiler if you haven't watched the movie.

Someone yanked the beer bottle from his hand. He trailed the departing bottle. His fogged eyes found someone vaguely familiar. The center. 

"It took me a while to find you," the center said with a sad smile. “Two long years it has been." 

That was because Grantaire did not want to be found. He wanted to forget. 

"The resistance needs you sober, for you to pilot," the man declared. Combeferre cocked his glasses over his eyes. 

"The resistance doesn’t need this pilot," Grantaire drawled out, and held his head. “This pilot lost the synch, or maybe you’ve forgotten." 

"No, I have not," the center replied.

Combeferre was head of operations, who knew all the remaining jaegers to their last bolt, ran the show from the background, knew all the crews and teams to the lowest man. Which was why he was nicknamed the center. The man who held the helm, while the light….while the light….

The light had grown dim. 

Enjolras. The best, the fastest pilot. Any who synched with him merely had to align, sit back, be the support, be the other half, and watch the show.

Grantaire had been the best synch so far, because he had nothing to give but his blanked mind. He merely needed to let the light shine brightly. He questioned the questionable choices, corrected the mistaken thoughts, but generally he let the best pilot in the resistance be their best, be their light. 

He was the synch when the Category 4 sliced through the jaeger’s head, split the suit cleanly in half, through the neural detectors. He was the synch when the connection snapped, when their best pilot was thrown into open sky and into open ocean. He was the synch when the neural connection snapped, in the middle of the terrified screams their light had hidden deep in his brain, far from his steely face. 

Now all that remained in his mind were the screams. 

Only one thing sufficiently drowned it out: ethanol. Large quantities of it. 

He left the resistance even before the news went public that the pilot had been found alive but unconscious. It was on the public newsfeeds that he found that the pilot never woke. A sleeping beauty, he mused bitterly. For the pilot was pretty, in a way that could only be possible in that one man. That image only added a visual to his constant auditory nightmare. 

What did it matter. He was a living dead man himself. Merely one that walked. Fueled by alcohol. 

Now the stupid center was taking even that away from him. 

"Look, Grantaire, everyone misses you. They want you back in the team," Combeferre implored. 

"You just don’t have a stupid drunk to keep you entertained most nights," Grantaire retorted. 

"Well, yes, that….but, seriously, Grantaire. We need you to pilot." 

"How? I have no synch." 

"There will be one," the center declared. 

"There is none other." 

"I know." 

………………………

Grantaire followed him anyway. He was not sure why. He just wanted his bottle back, and the center still held it. 

He followed him silently into a helicopter. He silently allowed himself back into the landing pad he knew so well, the heavy iron doors that opened only for friends. 

He lowered his head as all the people he knew so well stopped to stare at him. Joly, raising his head from the anatomical research on the kaiju. Eponine, suiting up for a practice run. Jehan, running mathematical schematics. Bahorel and Feuilly tweaking their jaeger. Marius, keeping the accounts straight. 

Courfeyrac was the last to acknowledge him, for he was in the control center, keeping an eye on all the displays, always excited and bright. “Missed you, pal," he said, warmly. 

Grantaire sighed, all the same. It felt so much like home, this noise, this oil, this chaos. Yet it could never be home to him again. Not without the light. 

"We have managed to salvage enough of the parts to make a new jaeger," their kid mechanic Gavroche piped up. “It’ll have the same specs that you know, so it won’t be so hard to get used to it. We can have you practice immediately…." 

"No," he said. “Please, no." 

The control center grew silent. 

He spoke above the deafening quiet. “I can’t. There’s too much noise in my brain. I can’t synch. I can’t. Please don’t make me."

He covered his ears and shut his eyes. The screams returned to his brain, the visual appeared over him. He tried to muffled it out again, but failed completely. He bent down and curled into a ball, stifling whatever of the noise he could. 

"Please. Do not make me pilot. Do not make me synch. Please." 

Then another voice pierced the air.

"Not even….with me?"

That voice pierced his mind, speared through his heart, broke through the terrible noise.

Grantaire did not dare believe, he who had never believed in anything in his life. But he lifted his head, and turned to the sound.

He found a wheelchair. He found a face. He found a smile.

He found his light.


End file.
